Living in Arthur
by all the shattered pieces
Summary: Anwen Crow is the new kid in Elwood City. Follow her adventures with Arthur and his friends in Elwood City as she lives out the summer before their eighth grade year! / / Rated T because of language and middle school stuff / / I drew the cover image, by the way!


A bored girl sat on the front porch of her new house in the middle-of-nowhere town of Elwood City. She's a cat with pale fur, short, choppy, dyed red hair with hot pink and purple bangs, multiple piercings in each ear in addition to a piercing in her left nostril, and she looks like she doesn't give a damn about what's going on. She pulls her black hoodie tighter around her, since the wind is blowing a storm in, and it's getting chilly for late June. In fact, it's almost July.

She pokes her head into the house and yells something, then walks off the porch and onto the sidewalk. The wind blows her jacket away, revealing an oversized black Nirvana t-shirt. She sighs and zips her jacket up, slips on a knit olive green beanie, and continues on her way.

The girl is stopped after about two houses by an elderly dog, small and yellow, running her way. The dog dragged a red leash behind him. She placed a boot-clad foot on the leash, stopping the dog in his daring escape. She bent down to examine his collar, adjusting her hat, but was startled when she head somebody call out.

"Scuse me?" she yelled back, pausing her music. "Didn't hear you!"

An aardvark boy ran up to her, clumsily pushed up his glasses, and tugged the leash out from under the girl's foot.

"I said, thanks for stopping my dog," he panted. "His name's Pal."

"Ah," she responded. "Useful information indeed."

The aardvark boy just gathered the dog's leash in his hand and proceeded to walk away, but looked back at the girl standing alone as she fiddled with her iPod, and went back over to her.

"Hey, are you new here?" he asked. "I'm Arthur. Haven't seen you around before."

"Oh, yeah," she responded. "I'm moving into that brown house right over there."

She pointed at the house and the people moving stuff into it.

"I'm Anwen Crow."

"Nice to meet you…" Arthur paused as he tried to recall Anwen's name. "Um, could you spell that please?"

She smiled. "A-N-W-E-N, Anwen. It's Welsh, if you were wondering."

"Okay." Arthur shrugged. "Um, wanna walk Pal with me?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, and then nodded. "Beats walking alone and getting lost in this hell of a place."

"It's a nice city, actually," he began. "I've lived here forever and-"

"Yeah, I know," she sighed. "I miss my best friend, that's all. We were super close, and now I might never see her again."

"Hmm."

"Nicely phrased," she remarked. "It mirrors my current feeling. But that might be closer to 'meh,' being totally honest."

"Nicely phrased," Arthur joked. "So, what grade are you going into?"

"Eighth, I'm thirteen," she told him. "You?"

"Same."

"Cool. At least I won't be a total loner."

"Eh, you'll fit in with the other loners," he said. "Like George or Lydia or somebody else."

"You do realize I have no clue who the fuck those people are, correct?" Anwen responded. "I only know you."

"I'll come by tomorrow morning to come get you, and we can meet up with some of my friends and get ice cream or walk around or something?" he suggested. "I mean, if that's cool with you."

"Okay." She shrugged. "But it will not be a date under any circumstances. I only fall for very interesting guys and rather interesting girls, but mostly girls because guys are bitches. You haven't proven to be even remotely interesting yet."

There was a pause in the conversation before Arthur broke it. He was unsure if he should react to the fact that she was gay, insulting him, or just promise it wouldn't be a date. He waited; awkwardly hoping an answer would come to him.

"You cuss a lot," he observed stupidly.

"You're not deaf, congrats," she said back in a deadpan voice.

They walked together for a while; chatting about various things, until the storm blew in and they returned to their respective homes, ready to meet again the next morning.

* * *

Arthur stood on the front porch of Anwen's new house and rang the doorbell. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt and green shorts, and clutching an iPhone with a green and blue case.

The door creaked open, revealing a clearly exhausted Anwen clad in an oversized Ghostbusters t-shirt and pajama pants with kittens on them. She wasn't wearing her glasses, and looked evidently very confused at who was standing in front of her.

"Hello?" She squinted at the figure in front of her. "Oh. Oh, it's you. Hi. Sorry. Let me go change, I'll be down soon. Hi."

"Hey," he responded, sitting on the porch steps and playing Flappy Bird on his phone while he waited.

Anwen soon came back out in a black Beatles t-shirt, her black hoodie, jean shorts, black Doc Martens, her green beanie, and carrying a purse that she slipped over her shoulder.

"Sorry, I pulled an all-nighter a week ago finishing up a paper and my sleep schedule has been fucked up ever since," she explained. "So, let's go!"

They walked to the Sugar Bowl, Arthur explaining what everything was as they went along and Anwen occasionally mumbling something in response but mostly paying attention to the rock music blaring in her ears through neon blue earbuds.

"Well, this is the Sugar Bowl, and those are all of my friends," Arthur told her. "They're more of my best friends, though."

"Goody," she muttered. Anwen was kind of used to not being widely accepted or liked, and she just assumed that they would hate her. Plus, she was pretty antisocial and would rather read a book or play music. Luckily, she came prepared.

She pushed open the door and held it open for Arthur, then followed in behind him, closing it quietly. Anwen slid into the booth before Arthur did, so she was sandwiched between him and the wall, directly across from a bear boy reading from a thick book.

The other people at the table were a rabbit boy gulping down a chocolate milkshake, a girl with long ginger braids tapping the straw of her diet soda and sighing as she continuously checked her phone, another girl with short brown hair that was flicking bits of paper at the milkshake boy, and a redhead browsing through stuff on her tablet.

Anwen immediately disliked all of them except for the boy across from her and the redhead without braids. Anybody reading must at least like books, and the redhead was cute.

"Guys, this is Anwen, she's new here," Arthur explained. She looked up from the book she'd conjured from her purse and waved. "So, Anwen, this is everybody. That's Allen, Buster, Muffy, Francine, and Sue Ellen."

She'd paid attention enough to know that the dude across from her was Allen, milkshake boy was Buster, phone addict was Muffy, paper flicker was Francine, and cute redhead was Sue Ellen.

Buster and Arthur immediately struck up a conversation about some show they both liked, Muffy was texting with a ferocity she doubted such a skinny girl could handle, Francine was absorbed in conversation with Sue Ellen, which left Anwen and Allen alone to talk.

"So," she began awkwardly, "whatcha reading?"

"Gone With the Wind," he replied without looking up. "I'm assuming you haven't read it, due to the fact that you appear to be a person of an average or below average intelligence."

"Are you kidding?" she whisper yelled. "Don't insult me like that, bitch. I know I look weird. But I've read it twice, understand it perfectly, and I fucking love the book. Oh, and I scored above the national average on almost all areas of the ACT, plus I'm taking a college-level abnormal psychology class right now. Deal."

Allen looked up, shocked, and pushed his reading glasses up. "I apologize," he said, obviously flustered. "You just have the appearance of a… not that you don't look good… I mean you look fine it's just not my style… I just meant-"

"Shut the fuck up," Anwen responded. "Yeah, most girls with nose piercings wouldn't be into Gone With the Wind. But I'm different."

"Can I just get back to my reading now?" he asked in a pleading voice, trying to indicate that he was very much done with the conversation. "I almost have it finished, Bonnie just died, and I have no clue how Scarlett and Rhett will cope with this surprising new development in the novel."

"Whatevs, dude," she sighed, not pleased with the conversation.

Anwen resumed her reading, until she felt herself being poked on the arm. Her head snapped up; she should always look around when she's reading, and she couldn't believe she forgot!

"Hey, what are you reading?" asked the girl known as Sue Ellen. "Just curious."

"The Fault in Our Stars," Anwen smiled. "It's one of my favorites. You?"

"Oh, I was just surfing the web," she said. "And watching a show."

"What show?" Anwen asked. She had nobody else to talk to, and since she was in a bit of a bad mood, she was just feeling worse due to the overall mood of the book.

"Faking It," the redhead responded. "It's on MTV, if you want to watch it. I could tell you what it's about."

"I already know, that's like my favorite show!" she exclaimed. "I'm pretty much in love with Amy, and I hate Karma for hurting her, and I hate Karma for being with whatever that dude's name is. Plus it's one of the only shows I could find with gay characters."

"Oh my god, I know, right?" Sue Ellen responded enthusiastically, eyes shining with the happiness that comes from somebody understanding one tiny, quirky detail about you. "But Karma is adorable. I think she's was prettier than Amy."

"I'm just waiting for season two," Anwen laughed.

"Same."

"We could marathon-watch it together sometime," she suggested. "If that's cool."

"Yeah, totally," Sue Ellen responded. "Here, hold on."

She tapped Arthur on the shoulder. "Switch with me?" she asked, indicating that she wanted to sit by Anwen. Arthur nodded, and the switch was made.

"If you want sound, we'll have to share headphones. The other headphone port doesn't work, not since my one of siblings stuck a Twizzler in there!"

"Sure, we can use mine," Anwen volunteered. "Plug them in."

They pulled up the first episode and happily watched together, switched phone numbers, and made plans to hang out together within the next few days.

Anwen was starting to like it in Elwood City.

* * *

**You enjoy it? Anwen is based off of me. And no, Anwen isn't my name, but that's such a cool name! I would change my name to Anwen if I had to change it. Updates will be pretty regular, and set a week before the time they were written. Okay? Any more questions you can leave in a review.**

**xox all the shattered pieces**


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